Overview and CQC Inspections

OverallGood

Our inspector's description of this service

Last updated 16 April 2018

Watton Medical Practice provides services to approximately 12,200 patients in Watton, a rural area south of Norwich. The practice has three GP partners (all male), two salaried GPs (female) and also employs locum GPs. There is a practice manager and finance manager. The practice employs a nurse manager, three senior nurses, two nurse practitioners, two practice nurses, two healthcare assistants and an emergency care practitioner. Other staff include a team of receptionists, administration staff and secretaries. The practice holds a General Medical Services contract with South Norfolk Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

Watton Medical Practice has completed the contractual process of forming an alliance with two other local practices to further enhance the services offered to patients. The alliance was due to Watton Medical Practice struggling with low staffing numbers and the practice therefore found it difficult to continue providing medical services to its population. The alliance is part of a four year plan of driving improvement in Watton Medical Practice.

The practice is open between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Thursday. The practice offers extended hours appointments between 7am to 8am on Tuesdays and 6.30pm to 8pm on Wednesdays. The practice is open between 8.30am and 5pm on a Friday and closes between 12.20pm and 2pm on Wednesdays. During this time, a duty GP is available for any medical emergencies. Appointments can be booked up to six weeks in advance with GPs and nurses. Urgent appointments are available for people that need them, as well as telephone appointments. Online appointments are available.

When the practice is closed patients are automatically diverted to the GP out of hour’s service provided by Integrated Care 24. Patients can also access advice via the NHS 111 service.

We reviewed the most recent data available to us from Public Health England which showed the practice has a smaller number of patients aged 30 to 44 years old compared with the national average. It has a larger number of patients aged 65 to 85 compared to the national average. Income deprivation affecting children is 15%, which is higher than the CCG average of 13% and lower than the national average of 20%. Income deprivation affecting older people is 13%, which is higher than the CCG average of 12% and lower than the national average of 16%. Life expectancy for patients at the practice is 80 years for males and 84 years for females; this is comparable to both the CCG and England life expectancy which is 79 years and 83 years.

Inspection ratings

We rate most services according to how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led they are, using four levels:

Outstanding – the service is performing exceptionally well.

Good – the service is performing well and meeting our expectations.

Requires improvement – the service isn't performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve.

Inadequate – the service is performing badly and we've taken enforcement action against the provider of the service.

No rating/under appeal/rating suspended – there are some services which we can’t rate, while some might be under appeal from the provider. Suspended ratings are being reviewed by us and will be published soon.

Ticks and crosses

We don't rate every type of service. For services we haven't rated we use ticks and crosses to show whether we've asked them to take further action or taken enforcement action against them.

There's no need for the service to take further action. If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with us, our judgement may be based on our assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service.

The service must make improvements.

At least one standard in this area was not being met when we inspected the service and we have taken enforcement action.